Today in History

On April 8, 1963, the Detroit Tigers claimed on waivers little-known pitcher Denny McLain away from the Chicago White Sox. During the minor league draft the White Sox decided to instead protect Hall of Famer (not baseball) and current Top 30 all-time Piston Dave Debusschere. Oops, the South-Siders made a mistake there. After a less than fulfilling 1963 and 1964 (121 innings pitched and 6 wins) seasons with the Tigers, McLain went on to a stellar 6 year run as the Bengals ace.

McLain would go on to win 108 games in the 6 year span all culminated by the 1968 run to the World Series Championship. In the championship campaign of 1968, McLain would put together one of the greatest seasons ever by a pitcher. Along with wining the AL-MVP and AL-Cy Young, he posted a record of 31-6 (the last pitcher to win 30 games). He also posted a 1.96 ERA in 336 innings pitched. Remember, we now rave over a pitcher that is able to pitch a 200 inning season. He also had 28 complete games and 6 shutouts, two stats that would be great career numbers for today's great pitchers.

Here's to the great season of 1968.

Update - Arrested again